I Just Wanted To Live but I Somehow Became Better Than the Protagonist

21 Feast

— Bu Liu Village

In the woods several kilometers away, where the crossbow-wielding assassins met their end, Long Tian lay on the ground, gasping for breath.

His body was a tapestry of wounds, his clothes tattered and torn, resembling a figure drenched in blood.

Yet, with his mastery at the second tier of crystallization, he had managed to dispatch two assassins who had long since settled into their own second tier, along with one at the third tier. It was no small feat.

But pride did not swell within Long Tian. He gazed up at the overcast sky, recalling the gentle gaze of Uncle Liu as he had looked at him for the last time. His eyes began to glisten with unshed tears, a torrent of thoughts flooding his mind.

He rose to his feet, stripping the assassins of their belongings, leaving only the token of their sect. The bodies were of no concern; soon enough, the beasts of the wild would come to aid in their obliteration.

Dragging a trail of blood, Long Tian returned to the village.

Uncle Liu lay where he had fallen, quietly at rest, his face devoid of pain. If not for the blood seeping into the snow, dark and crimson, one might think he was merely asleep.

Kneeling before Uncle Liu, Long Tian grasped his gnarled hands and wept, “I’m sorry, Uncle Liu. It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t come back… none of this would have happened. I’m so sorry…”

The old immortal remained silent. Though he wished to impart wisdom about the unpredictability of life and the inevitability of death, it was clear that Long Tian needed to vent his grief over the loss of a loved one.

“Tian’er! What has happened!?” Before long, the villagers, who had been rendered unconscious by the talismans, began to awaken. They emerged to find Long Tian kneeling in the snow, and Uncle Liu lying still.

The assassin organization was not a cult of dark sorcery; in a sense, they were recognized by the righteous path. After all, when it came to certain unsavory tasks, those of the righteous sect preferred to keep their hands and reputations clean, often resorting to clandestine contracts. History had shown that organizations that indiscriminately slaughtered innocents could not endure for long. Thus, most would only resort to taking a few hostages when necessary.

After all, compared to the massacre of an entire village of hundreds, taking a few lives was well within acceptable limits, and the righteous cultivators would not intervene too much.

This was why the assassin Long Tian had dispatched earlier had pretended to be a passing cultivator, distributing “benefits” to the villagers, which were, in truth, talismans designed to induce unconsciousness and erase short-term memories.

“There are lawless scoundrels who have invaded the village.” Long Tian did not wish to elaborate. Uncle Liu’s death filled him with guilt and rage. He silently vowed to exact “retribution” upon Bai Song and the Black Mantis Sect.

Cradling Uncle Liu’s body, Long Tian returned home, wrapping the remains with care, hastily cleaning the blood from the living room, and dragging the headless corpse outside the village.

The villagers watched in silence as Long Tian performed these tasks, none daring to approach or speak, for they knew not what had transpired, and most were mere mortals, too timid to meddle in the affairs of cultivators.

By the time Long Tian finished, it was already midday.

What was meant to be a joyous New Year’s feast had turned into a wake for Uncle Liu.

Long Tian sat at the village chief’s table, having changed into a clean set of clothes, the wounds on his body mostly healed thanks to the medicinal pills.

“Brother Tian, once a life is lost, it cannot return. Please, grieve and accept the change.” The village chief’s daughter, Cuihua, was considered the most beautiful in the village, yet when compared to the women of the Tianluo Sect, she fell short by a wide margin.

Of course, in Long Tian’s eyes, she was merely an ordinary passerby. It was already a kindness that he held no grudge against her for the times in childhood when she and her gang of village bullies had tormented him.

Seeing Long Tian silent, Cuihua pressed on, “Tomorrow, Uncle Liu’s body will be buried. How about you stay at my house tomorrow night?”

Long Tian remained mute. At that moment, the village chief hurried to mediate, “Alright, Cuihua, Tian’er is in a bad mood. Let him be alone for a while.”

Then, those at the table began to express their condolences and sorrow for Uncle Liu.

Long Tian picked at his food, then set down his chopsticks. He truly had no appetite. As a fellow villager, he felt it necessary to show some respect since Uncle Liu would be laid to rest in the village cemetery, allowing the villagers to care for his grave.

After the meal, Long Tian returned to his room, sitting with Uncle Liu’s body, reminiscing about the fragments of their shared life.

—The Ye Family;

The main purpose of Ye Yong’s New Year visit was not to collect red envelopes, but simply to soak in the atmosphere of the Earth’s New Year celebrations.

As he became more integrated into this world, his cultivation deepened, and his mindset inevitably shifted. Just as back on Earth, many had remarked that the New Year had lost its flavor. In truth, it wasn’t that the essence was gone; rather, they had outgrown the age where they could truly savor it.

This was Ye Yong’s first Spring Festival since his arrival, and he naturally wished for it to be memorable, lest the passage of time bring forth more troubles, leaving him no leisure to ponder such things.

By the end of the rounds, Ye Yong had received nearly two thousand high-grade spirit stones as red envelopes—a sum that could rival the treasury of some great nations, truly wealth that could rival kingdoms.

Behind him, more and more younger members of the Ye family gathered, ranging from five to over twenty years old, both boys and girls, all receiving their own red envelopes.

Each of them received dozens of mid-grade spirit stones! It was simply terrifying!

Ye Yong glanced back at his cousins and siblings, feeling that the elders of the Ye family were indeed hypocritical. No wonder the novels spoke of “Ye Yong” leading to the family’s downfall.

“Brother Yong, how much did Grandpa give you?” A five-year-old was pushed forward by Ye Mao and the others to speak.

After all, the red envelope for Ye Yong was filled with spirit stones, while theirs were merely tossed a mid-grade spirit stone, which naturally sparked curiosity.

“Actually, it’s not much,” Ye Yong replied with a wry smile. He wasn’t a devil, after all, and didn’t want to crush their spirits.

“How much is ‘not much’?” However, children often dug deeper.

“About twice what you got.”

The child counted on his fingers, “Oh, I see, two mid-grade spirit stones.”

Behind him, Ye Mao and the others could hardly believe it, but Ye Yong said nothing, leaving them powerless. The elders of the family had mostly finished their visits, and now, at midday, it was time to disperse.

“Wait.” As Ye Yong noticed the younger male descendants of the Ye family preparing to leave, while the female descendants were getting ready to stick around, he quickly called out to them.

“How about we go eat together? It seems we’ve never tried gathering the young ones like this.”

The cousins readily agreed, and as for the male cousins, recalling the elders’ advice to learn more from Ye Yong, they nodded in agreement as well.